by exposing the patient to the rays of the moon, he soon became dubbed
The Moon Doctor of Berlin.
Sometime in 1783, it was reported that Dr. Weisleder had cured a well-
to-do woman of a terrible ailment. He suddenly became a celebrity.
Previously only the poorest Berliners had been seen waiting outside the
beer hall in their rags; now magnificent carriages were parked outside, and
gentlemen in frock coats, and ladies with enormous coiffures, lined the
street as sunset drew near. Even folk with the mildest of ailments came, out
of sheer curiosity. As they waited in line, the poorer clients would explain
to the gentlemen and ladies that the doctor only practiced when the moon
was in its increscent phase. Many would add that they themselves had
already been exposed to die healing powers he called forth from the rays of
the moon. Even those who felt cured kept coming back, drawn by this
powerful experience.
Inside the beer hall, a strange and stirring spectacle greeted the visitor:
Packed into the entrance hall was a crowd of all classes and ethnic
backgrounds, a veritable Tower of Babel. Through tall windows on the
northern side of the hall, silvery moonlight poured in at odd angles. The
doctor and his wife, who, it seemed, was also able to effect the cure,
practiced on the second floor, which was reached by a stairway, at the end
of the hall. As the line edged closer to the stairs, the sick would hear shouts
and cries from above, and word would spread of, perhaps, a blind
gentleman suddenly able to see.
Once upstairs, the line would fork in two directions, toward a northern
room for the doctor, a southern one for his wife, who worked only on the
ladies. Finally, after hours of anticipation and waiting in line, the gentlemen
patients would be led before the amazing doctor himself, an elderly man
with a few stalks of wild gray hair and an air of nervous energy. He would
take the patient (let us say a young boy, brought in by his father), uncover
the afflicted body part, and lift the boy up to the window, which faced the
light of the moon. He would rub the site of the injury or illness, mumble
something unintelligible, look knowingly at the moon, and then, after
collecting his fee, send the boy and his father on their way. Meanwhile, in
the south-facing room, his wife would be doing the same with the
ladieswhich was odd, really, since the moon cannot appear in two places at
once; it cannot have been visible, in other words, from both windows.
Apparendy the mere thought, idea, and symbol of the moon were enough,